


Pale Fire

by 5kenx5



Category: Fifth Harmony (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Detective Noir, F/F, Murder Mystery, Nancy Drew-ing, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-10 14:52:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12301473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5kenx5/pseuds/5kenx5
Summary: It all started with a murder.When her father is arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, Camila’s left with only one choice - solve it herself. The evidence is compelling, and it only points to one other person. It should’ve been simple. It should’ve been easy.But Camila never expected to fall in love with her murder suspect.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm having severe writer's block for my other fics and I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while, so I figured I'd get started on it until I find some inspiration for the other fics again. I'm only posting the prologue for now, so please let me know what you guys think about this and if you'd be interested in me continuing it. I'll post the first chapter soon if you guys are interested in this story. I hope it piques your interest, because I'm really excited about writing it. Enjoy ~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It only left Camila with one choice, really - solve the murder herself.

Prologue:

  


It was _terribly_ cliche.

That was Camila’s first thought when she heard the news. It spread like a wildfire - cutting through the town, raging through the streets, a frantic and all-consuming flame that tore right through Starling’s small town illusion until it crumbled.

The whole town was choking on the ashes by sunrise.

It wasn’t surprising - how fast the news spread; in a 20-mile town of just under 3000 people, you couldn’t even sneeze without everyone you’d ever met knowing about it. Gossip was the glue that held the town together - well, gossip, and a complete disregard for DUIs. News travelled fast, no matter what it was. When the first (and only) McDonald’s finally popped up off the highway, you would’ve thought it was the eighth wonder of the world, the way everyone talked about it.

But this was bigger than McDonald’s - much bigger. It was the most interesting thing to ever happen in Starling, California.

The town didn’t have much. There was a Motel 6 with a history of bed bugs, a few bars that didn’t card, a diner that never technically passed a health inspection, and a sheriff’s department smaller than the football team. (And the new McDonald’s.)

And now there was a dead girl.

They found her body the first day of summer break, inside a restricted area in Starlings only economic success - a chemical plant that manufactures drugs for some of the top pharmaceutical companies. She was wrapped in a clean, white sheet, her makeup still in place and her hair still curled, and not so much as an eyelash out of place. She almost looked like she was sleeping, if it weren’t for the angry gashes that spelled out “guilty” carved into both of her forearms.

The Medical Examiner said it was done post mortem - that she’d been dead almost an hour when the cuts were made - and the cause of death was exposure to a mixture of chemicals that obviously proved to be deadly when combined.

But despite the tragedy of a sixteen year old’s premature death, Camila couldn’t help but just find it all terribly cliche - how the most interesting thing to ever happen in her small town was a murder no one could solve, (at first, anyway).

She’d watched dozens of movies, read dozens of books. It was a cliche if she ever saw one.

And she didn’t much care for it - not until she woke up 2 and a half weeks into her summer break to her dad being dragged through the front door in handcuffs. The sheriff’s department never bothered to look past his immigration status, and the town decided him guilty long before the trial.

It only left Camila with one choice, really - solve the murder herself.


	2. Who's Lucy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated (:

Chapter 1 -

 

Camila had a playlist for every occasion - really, every occasion. Her Spotify account was organized almost obsessively, with a long list ranging from songs about butts, to songs about the stars, to songs to play in that moment right before sunset when the sky is purple and orange and it looks like heaven is spilling out over the mountains.

She also had a playlist dedicated to the dead girl.

So as Sean Daley’s voice in her earbuds faded into a telling Beatles intro, she was too wrapped up in her latest playlist obsession to hear the car barrelling towards her bike from behind. She swerved at the last second, catching the silver Honda out of the corner of her eye just soon enough for her crappy reflexes to send her on a nose dive into the curb. She didn’t have to look back up at the car to know who was driving - the laugh she’d heard through the window as she flipped her bike over the concrete was unmistakable.

Brad wouldn’t have actually hit her - he was an ass, but he wasn’t homicidal. Still, though, the car startled her enough to lose her balance. She was more upset about scratching her new bike than she was about the bruise already swelling onto the back of her head. She’d finally saved up enough money over the summer to buy a bike her size (instead of the hand-me-down she’d gotten from her neighbor that pushed her knees all the way up to her chest when she peddled), and now the cobalt paint over the frame had an angry swatch of black rippling through it.

If that wasn’t bad enough, when she grabbed her phone out of the gutter where it’d fallen from her pocket, she noticed the top corner of the screen had shattered. A few pieces of glass got stuck in the pad of her thumb as she traced over the cracks, but it still registered her touch when she hit the play button halfway through the Beatles song Brad had interrupted, so she just shrugged and stuffed it back into her pocket - leaving one ear bud out so she could hear the road this time as she continued peddling towards the school.

She had bigger problems to worry about than a broken phone screen.

The bike rack was crowded - not many kids in Starling could afford cars at sixteen, and nobody wanted to cram onto the bus with the sixth graders. She wound up locking her bike to the fence instead and prayed that it wouldn’t be recognized as hers right away, since it was so new. After her mom’s license plates had been stolen and replaced with painted cardboard reading “MURDERER,” and her bedroom window had been smashed in with a brick, and her sister stopped asking to go to the park because the other first graders tied her to the tire swing by her shoelaces and spun it around until she threw up, she didn’t exactly trust them to just not touch her bike.

She’d already accepted that she’d walk out to a flat tire or broken spokes or somebody’s idea of a new paint job eventually.

She just hoped it wouldn’t happen on the first day of school.

Instead of making her way to the quad like she had every other morning since the start of sixth grade, she decided to avoid the crowd and walk around the back side of the school instead - the doors were supposed to be locked from the inside, but Mrs. Lovato, the music teacher, had shown her how to shimmy open the door on the far left side sometime during her eighth grade year, so she knew she could hide in the music room at least until the bell rang.

It wasn’t that she was afraid of the other kids, but she didn’t exactly have any desire to spend her morning with the same kids whose parents condemned her father to a life behind bars, and it didn’t help that they spent the summer tormenting what was left of her family. The only thing worse than watching the judge say “guilty,” was her six year old sister trying to run away from home.

(She came back when she realized she would miss dinner).

But if Camila’s dad ever taught her anything, it was not to give up and not to give in, so she’d be damned if she was chased out of the town she spent her whole life wishing to escape from. Sofi would understand that one day, she hoped.

She was surprised to find somebody already hiding out behind the school, when she finally rounded the corner past the football field. He was tall, lanky, with a mop of brown hair he either didn’t know how to style or didn’t care to. And he was standing there, kicking the building, in nothing but his shoes and a pair of boxers.

What Camila found even more strange than his lack of clothing, however, was that she didn’t recognize him. She’d gone to school with the same people for eleven years now, yet somehow, she didn’t recognize this kid at all.

He spun around at the sound of her footsteps approaching him, awkwardly maneuvering his arms over his torso like he was trying to cover his body without drawing attention to it.

“That time of the month, huh?” Camila joked, once she caught sight of his face.

“Excuse me?”

“PMS?” She laughed lightly, gesturing towards the sharpie scrawled across his forehead.

He groaned, his cheeks flushing while he tried to adjust his messy hair over the unmistakable letters.

“It’s really not that bad,” Camila tried to assure him, but she couldn’t hold off the amused smile tugging at her lips.

“My face says ‘PMS.’ I’m a dude,” he deadpanned.

“Nobody is safe from PMS in this town, I’m afraid,” she sighed dramatically.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“PMS is our local motorcycle gang,” she explained, “and I’m guessing you did something to piss them off.”

His face paled more as she said it, and she couldn’t help but find it almost endearing.

“Should I...should I be worried?”

“Trust me, they would’ve done more than steal your clothes and draw on your face if you really had something to worry about. They were probably just trying to make a statement on the new kid,” Camila shrugged.

“Is it that obvious?”

“I can name every person in this entire school,” she laughed, “you stick out more for being new than you do for being naked.” And that seemed to remind him that he was standing behind his new school in nothing but his boxers. His cheeks burned and he cleared his throat, looking down at the one article of clothing he had left apologetically.

“Don’t worry, New Kid, I think there’s an old PE uniform still in my locker from last year. You can wear that.”

“Thanks,” he smiled awkwardly, “I’m Shawn, by the way.”

***  
“So what’s your name?” He asked, stepping out of the bathroom with his newly donned PE uniform. It was small on him - the shorts, didn’t even reach his knees, but thankfully Camila had kept her ex-boyfriend’s hoodie in her locker so at least he wasn’t stuck with a crop top as well.

“Depends who you ask.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s Canola to some, Cockroach to others. A freshman called me Chupacabra once, and I was actually kind of honored. Chupacabras are a lot cooler than I am.”

“What should I call you?”

“Open up a dictionary to the letter C. I’m sure you’ll find something that stands out to you.”

“Callipygian,” he blurted abruptly. Camila raised her eyebrows at his word choice. She didn't know what the word meant, but she wasn't sure it was good based on the guilty expression taking over his eyebrows.

“I play scrabble,” he muttered in embarrassment.

“Well,” she started, “that’s definitely a new one.”

“Why won’t you just tell me your name?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Camila shrugged, just as the bell rang. She turned on her heels towards her first period class and heard his voice echo into the hallway behind her.

“You’re kind of weird, you know that?”

“I’ve been told once or twice,” she laughed without turning around. She wasn’t counting on him talking to her again by the time the other kids had their chance with him.

Who would want to be friends with the daughter of a murderer?

She had pre-calc first, and aside from the girl behind her - Taylor - tossing crumpled up papers with finished games of hangman onto her desk - all of which had the noose already tied and Cab*llo written across the bottom - the class went by relatively smoothly.

Dinah, in true Dinah fashion, burst through the doors 20 minutes after class started, her leather jacket draped over her shoulders even though it was at least 90 degrees outside. She had the sleeves pushed up to her elbows, with her motorcycle helmet in one hand and her backpack slung over one shoulder, hanging at her side so that the red ‘PMS’ logo on the back of her jacket was still visible - like anyone in the whole damn town would be able to forget that she was the vice-president.

The teacher didn’t even pause as Dinah interrupted the the “class rules” powerpoint and slid into one of the empty seats beside Camila; punctuality had never been one of her strong suits, and the teachers learned fast that it was better not to argue with her.

“Chancho,” Dinah greeted, as she dropped her helmet onto the desk and stuck her fist out.

“Cheechee,” Camila responded, bumping the other girl’s extended fist.

They weren’t friends, not exactly, but Dinah had a soft spot for the smaller girl ever since little eight-year-old Camila let her copy off her math homework for the first time in second grade, so they talked in class sometimes and Dinah even got Austin Mahone suspended off the football team for the latter half of the season last year after he cheated on her with not one but both of the Jenner sisters.

So they weren’t friends, but they were something, and Camila was grateful for every something she had, considering the alternative was the blond girl behind her wasting perfectly good paper for a lousy hangman joke.

Apparently nobody told her that California didn't have the death penalty anymore.

After the bell rang, she made her way to her AP English class. She was a little disappointed that they were diving into work already, considering her last class was just a few powerpoint slides of class rules, but when the teacher passed out her favorite book as the first assignment, she didn’t really have it in her to be too upset about it.

To Kill a Mockingbird would never get old.

By the time the hell that was her third period chemistry class ended, she’d never been more ready to go to lunch.

***

She caught sight of Shawn at an empty table in the quad, and smiled politely as she moved to walk past him and into the parking lot, already resigned to eating lunch alone by the fence. She was she sure he’d want nothing to do with her now, after learning that she was basically a walking conduit of social suicide, but he waved her over anyways as soon as their eyes met.

“So how’s your first day going?” She asked, sliding into the bench across from him.

“This place is fucking weird,” he admitted through a mouthful of cheetos, “I don’t understand anything or anyone.”

“Oh come on,” Camila laughed, “it’s not that bad.”

“Easy for you to say,” he scoffed, “you’ve lived here forever.”

“There’s like, maybe 200 kids in this entire school. It’s not that hard.”

“Break it down for me then, C girl,” he told her, popping the tab on his soda.

“Alright, well the group up there by the cafeteria doors, those are the brainy kids,” Camila began, “you know, the top 10% - the twelve kids here that might actually get into decent colleges outside of this shitty town. You can talk to Ally - the little one in the red tank top there - if you need tutoring or anything. She’ll be graduating this year as valedictorian, if her ‘first-in-the-class-since-the-third-grade’ status is any indication, and she’s like, the nicest person you’ll ever meet.”

“You’re telling me,” Shawn said slowly, eyes wide, “that the top 10% of this school’s senior class if twelve people?”

“Of course not,” Camila laughed at the absurdity, “only seven of them are seniors.”

“Alright, what about them?” He gestured towards a group of students lying on their backpacks in the grass.

“Ah, the stoners,” Camila laughed, “should’ve known you’d go right for them. Talk to Vero - the brunette leaning up against the tree there. She’s practically a walking dispensary, and the only person you’ll get anything halfway decent from in this town. Everyone’s too afraid of her dad to put up a real challenge. If might be a little more than you’re used to spending though, since her family has pretty much monopolized marijuana sale from here to LA.”

“Thanks for the tip, but I don’t smoke.”

“Maybe you should; you seem...tense.”

“Well excuse me,” he scoffed, “ I haven’t even been in this crap town for 72 hours and already I’ve been turned into a human doodle by a motorcycle gang, I’m wearing a girl’s PE uniform that is three sizes too small for me, and the only person I’ve managed to hold a conversation with has been a girl called Chupacabra.”

“Yup,” Camila nodded, clapping her hands together, “you’re definitely paying Vero a visit after school.”

“Whatever,” he rolled his eyes, taking another bite of the mystery meat on his lunch tray. Camila was grateful she remembered to pack a lunch.

“That’s Alexa, over there talking to Vero,” Camila continued with her social tour, “she can hook you up with a fake ID if you want, but they don’t really card around here. Well, except for Karma - you know, the strip club over on Fifth? With the purple lights? But you don’t want to go there anyway. Vero’s dad owns the club, and the cover charge is more than either of us could afford. Besides, I’m pretty sure it’s mostly a drug front anyway.”

“You know I’m sixteen, right?”

“I do now,” she shrugged.

“I’m not really into strip clubs,” he tried again, and Camila found his irritation hilarious.

“What sixteen year old boy isn’t into strip clubs?” she laughed, “that’s a shame though, there isn’t much else to do in a town like this.”

“Alright, so let me guess,” he changed the subject, “those are the jocks?”

“Did the letterman jackets give it away?”

“Shut up,” he rolled his eyes.

“That’s the football team. They had to let the eighth graders try out last year just to have enough players, but none of them hang out over here. It’s mostly just the first string upperclassmen at that table.”

“Who’s the idiot trying to toss corn nuts into his mouth and missing?”

“That would be the quarterback - Austin Mahone. He’s charming until he gets what he wants - and he gets everything, because this whole town revolves around their sports.”

“So season one Nathan Scott, got it.”

“Oh my god,” Camila laughed, and Shawn ducked his head, “did you just make a One Tree Hill reference?”

“My sister watches it, okay.”

“I have a feeling we’re going to be great friends,” she grinned.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, C girl. You won’t even tell me your name.”

“All in due time, Shawny, all in due time.”

“So who’s the cheerleader cleaning up after Nathan 2.0?”

“That’s Normani, the would-be queen of the school if she actually cared about it. The cheer team is so beneath her, but they had to disband the dance team last year after all the seniors got high in their hotel room during a competition in Vegas, so cheer is the closest she has, I guess. She’s sweet, but driven. As long as you don’t get in her way, she won’t bother you.”

“She’s gorgeous,” Shawn pointed out.

“You got a little drool,” Camila joked, tapping his chin. He rolled his eyes with a laugh as he turned his attention back to the table.

“Anyways,” she continued, “up there by the parking lot are the drama and music kids. Hailee’s the president of the drama club - she can hook you up with a costume or something if you need it.”

“Why would I need a costume?”

“I don’t know what kind of stuff you’re into,” Camila shrugged. Shawn choked on the bite of the mystery meat he’d just shoved into his mouth

“What about the kid with the guitar?” He changed the conversation immediately, and Camila could hardly contain her amusement from how uncomfortable she was making him.

“That’s James. He’s in a band with the kid singing next to him - Brad. They’re the only local band in town, and they really aren’t that great, but they play at Havana sometimes and it’s a nice change of pace.”

“Havana?”

“It’s like...the one stop shop to all things Starling. Bar, strip club, diner, stage. I’m pretty sure it moonlights as a brothel, too. It’s the heart of the town.”

“It’s going to take me a long time to get used to this place,” Shawn admitted.

“We’re quirky.”

“You’re quirky, C girl.”

“Oh you have no idea,” Camila grinned.

“Who’s the girl with the singer?”

Camila didn’t have to look to know who he was talking about. Her and Brad were attached at the hip, lately.

“You know how every school has their obligatory asshole? Lauren’s ours. And wherever you find Brad, you'll find Lauren.”

“I just have one more question,” Shawn told her.

Camila nodded for him to continue.

“Who’s Lucy? I heard people talking about her all day.”

“Lucy Vives is our resident dead girl.”


	3. Project Verde

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you guys think! I wanna hear your predictions. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading. Hope you all are enjoying this story.

Chapter 2 -

 

“Camila.”

She ignored the whisper of her name from the seat beside her and continued scribbling answers down the columns of her worksheet.

“Camila.”

Her mind wandered - wandered to her father in prison 3 hours away, wandered to her little sister asking why Papa was gone, wandered to the summer job she had to get just to help her mother put food on the table after their primary source of income was locked behind bars. Her mind wandered to everything besides the Spanish verb conjugations staring back at her from the worksheet.

“Camila.”

Still she ignored the sound of her name, still she let her mind wander while she thoughtlessly completely her worksheet and settled in her regret for ever telling Shawn her name to begin with.

“ _Callipygian,_ ” he finally said with desperation, and she slammed her pencil onto the desk with unnecessary vigor as she turned to the boy beside her.

“I still don’t know what that means,” she began, exasperated, “but I’m not answering every question for you, Shawn! You have to at least do one of these by yourself.”

“I did the first one,” he countered.

“No, the teacher did the first one as an example. And then I did the next four. How did you even make it into Advanced Spanish if you can’t do basic verb conjugations?”

“My Spanish _teacher_ back home didn’t even speak Spanish,” he explained with a sigh, “do you really think he cared if any of _us_ could? He just let us Google our way through it all.”

“That’s such bullshit,” Camila huffed, shaking her head but still angling her paper out of Shawn’s line of sight.

“I’ll tell you what it means if you tell me how to conjugate _tener_ ,” he proposed, mangling even the simple word.

“What _what_ means?”

“Callipygian,” he clarified while trying to hide the way his eyes darted over her arms blocking her paper.

“I could just Google it, you know.”

“I thought that was ‘such bullshit?’” He teased with a smirk.

“It’s bullshit when you do it; it’s resourceful when I do.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, “I guess I’ll just have to wing it.”

“Guess you will.”

And with that, she went back to scribbling mindlessly into the boxes and thinking about how Lucy Vives died and ruined her life.

Lucy wasn’t her friend; they’d spoken maybe three times in her entire life. She wasn’t a person Camila ever spared a thought towards, ever paid attention to. Lucy was _nobody_ to her, and then somehow became her only focus in the world over night.

She studied her - her friends, her family, her hobbies, where she went, what she did. In the months between her father being dragged from their home (along with his name through the dirt) and the first week of school, Camila had shifted her entire world to rotate around Lucy Vives.

She had a suspect. She had several suspects, actually, but only one fit the mold in every way, shape, and form. There was means, there was opportunity, and there was most definitely motive.

The evidence she’d compiled swirled around in her head, it festered as she finished the last of the conjugations and doodled aimlessly across the bottom of the page, it echoed in her mind over and over and over until -

“Camila.”

“You’re still on tener, aren’t you?”

 

***

 

Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors all had P.E. together - seniors didn’t have to take it. The seventh and eighth graders all had it together for fifth period, and the older kids got to finish off their day with P.E. as their sixth period. So after nodding off through her own fifth period History class, Camila did her best to rush into the girls’ locker room before the rest of the class showed up.

Unfortunately, her history classroom was on the complete opposite side of the school.

Most of the girls had already changed into their uniforms by the time she finally made it - a swarm of dark gray shorts and maroon shirts with the silhouette of a cartoon spartan stared at her blankly as she searched for the only open locker left.

It was just her luck that it was the locker right next to Lauren Jauregui’s.

She expected a glare, a snarky comment, something reminiscent of the girl Camila had spent eleven years turning away from in the halls, but Lauren didn’t even look at her when she slid onto the bench.

It wasn’t that she was a bully, exactly - she’d never laid a hand on someone, that Camila knew of. And she didn’t particularly go out of her way to intimidate anyone, either. She just had an aura about her, a vibe that intimidated most people, and those that tried to challenge her got a firsthand taste of the way she could attack with her words. She was an asshole, the biggest asshole Camila had ever met, but she didn’t go out _searching_ for opportunities to be cruel.

Still, the Lauren she’d grown accustomed to would’ve said something when the social pariah of the school slid up to her locker.

But she didn’t. She was the only person in the room besides Camila who hadn’t changed into her uniform yet, and the way her eyebrows crinkled together while she just stared at the pile of gray and maroon in her lap was enough for her to realize that _this_ Lauren wasn’t the one she knew at all. Even as Camila slipped her clothes off to change, and double checked her lock for good measure, Lauren still hadn’t put her uniform on.

She would’ve asked, if Lauren wasn’t the same girl who made sure Camila got picked last for teams for two full years just because she _accidentally_ hit her with her bike in the seventh grade. In Camila’s defense, it was dark, and Lauren was dressed head to toe in black.

In Lauren’s defense, Camila wasn’t paying any attention.

Camila might’ve asked anyone else if they were okay, but she couldn’t muster up enough sympathy to care if Lauren was having a bad day - she’d been the cause of enough people’s bad days. So instead of asking, Camila just slammed her locker door shut and made her way out into the gym with the rest of the class.

She might’ve even asked about the way Lauren’s whole body jolted when the metal of the locker door clashed against the frame, but she didn’t.

She just shuffled off with the rest of the students and left the green-eyed girl on the bench behind her.

Shawn caught up with Camila during their warm up lap - or rather, Shawn stopped to walk with Camila the rest of her lap after he’d finished running his.

“Well-shaped buttocks,” he breathed out beside her, slowing his jog to match her leisurely pace.

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Callipygian,” he answered quickly, obviously flustered under Camila’s scrutinizing glare, “that’s what it means.”

“You _jerk!_ ” She yelled, “I thought you were being creative or something; not just finding a sneaky way to compliment my ass.”

“I was complimenting it _creatively,”_ he grinned.

Camila shook her head, stifling a light chuckle.

“You’re a loser.”

“Yeah, well,” Shawn smirked, before taking back off in a run, “I’m the only loser in this school that will talk to you.”

Camila picked up her pace after him, but realized quickly she wasn't going to be able to catch up. His lanky legs effortlessly carried him back to the starting line for the second time and her light jog was more of a power walk than anything else. By the time she made it back to the teacher, there were only four other girls behind her that were still walking.

And of course, Lauren, who had only just then walked out of the dressing room.

“Nice of you to join us, Miss Jauregui,” Mr. Campbell, the baseball coach, huffed, just as Lauren joined the rest of the group.

“It’s my pleasure,” she snapped back, but it lacked its usual bite.

“I hope you don’t plan on showing up to my practices with that kind of attitude.”

“No, of course not,” she muttered, fumbling with the edges of her blue sweatshirt, the one that was very much not a part of the P.E. uniform, “I don’t plan on showing up at all.”

“Excuse me?” He took a few steps towards her, eyebrows raised in challenge. The small crowd of students went silent at the interaction - and Camila didn’t blame them.

Lauren  _not_ clawing her way into a spot on the baseball team was enough of a surprise on its own - Camila could still remember the uproar Lauren had caused freshman year when she first tried out. They turned her away, of course, and took it as one big joke until she reported the whole thing as a title nine violation. They had to let her on the team after that - but she spent the whole first season on the bench. It wasn't until Harry broke his collar bone that she got to fill in on second base and that was the first year they made it to the play-offs, so they let her keep playing after that. Harry was more than happy to spend his time on the bench, instead. Lauren earned her spot on the team more than any of the boys that played, and she never let anybody forget it. Saying that she  _wouldn't_ be at practice, and so nonchalantly at that, like it wasn't even a big deal, was purely  _shocking._

“I won’t be playing this year,” she repeated softly, and it wasn’t until Mr. Campbell completely invaded her space than she lifted her gaze to meet his.

Something was different - even Camila could tell.

“You have six months to sort your shit out before the season starts,” he nearly growled, “I suggest you take that time to reevaluate your priorities.”

And with that, Lauren turned on her heels and took off for her warm-up lap around the football field, alone, clutching onto the sleeves her hoodie like some kind of security blanket even in the middle of a southern California summer. 

“I thought you said she was an asshole?” Shawn whispered, as Mr. Campbell turned to address the rest of the students. 

“I can't believe she didn't say  _fuck_ even once," Camila muttered in disbelief  

 

***

 

Asking for the first day of school was too much, apparently. 

 _Popped_ was an understatement. When she found her bike after the last bell rang, the back tire had been completely _shredded,_ the seat was ripped open, and the word ‘guilty’ had been carved into the cobalt paint much in the same way it’d been carved into Lucy’s wrists.

_So much for the new bike._

“Want a ride? My dad’s picking me up.” Shawn questioned, as Camila traced her fingers over the ruined paint. She was more upset about that than the tire or the seat - the paint had been so  _shiny._

“No offense, Shawn, but I _just_ met you. I’ll take my chances walking.”

“In this town?” He raised his eyebrows, “with _these_ people?”

“It’s only a few miles,” Camila reasoned, but she was hardly convinced. Shawn was right; it’d be a long walk home checking over her shoulder every couple of steps.

“Let me walk with you then,” he offered, “ my dad can just pick me up from your house.”

“Fine,” she relented, mostly just to appease the boy beside her. 

The walk was mostly silent. Camila was too busy wallowing in her irritation with every _thump, thump, thump_ of her bike as she rolled the shredded tire across the pavement to hold a successful conversation.

Shawn didn’t seem to mind though. He was good company, even in the silence.

Camila missed her dad. She missed coming home from school to her mom in the kitchen, already preparing dinner; she missed getting dropped off at school early on her dad’s way to work; she missed the way he always smelled like chemicals when he hugged her when he got home; she missed everything about the way her life used to be before Lucy Vives had the audacity to get murdered and ruin everything.

But mostly she just missed her dad.

When they finally made it back to her house, she sent Shawn up to her room while she tucked her bike away in the garage and made them a snack straight out of her own imagination - Camwhiches, she called them.

And in the midst of her anger from the bike, sadness from her dad, and excitement over her snack, she’d forgotten all about the folder she’d left on her desk that morning.

It wasn’t until she stepped into her room to find pictures of Lauren spread across her bed with handwritten notes and police reports, and the empty folder gripped tightly in Shawn’s hand, that she realized she’d fucked up.

“Camila,” he said slowly, turning towards her and pointing at the messy handwriting scrawled across the folder, “what the hell is Project Verde?”


	4. Dead Girls Tell No Tales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you guys are thinking! 
> 
> Things are really going to start picking up after this chapter, now that Lauren is going to be more involved in the story line. 
> 
> Comments and kudos keep me alive. Thanks for reading everybody!

Chapter 3 - 

-

 

“Shawn,” Camila began cautiously, “this isn’t what it looks like.”

“You’re totally a stalker.”

“No, I’m just... _investigating_ her.”

“Exactly,” he affirmed, “by stalking her.”

“I’m not stalking her!”

He lifted one of the photos of the bed, holding the photo of Lauren towards Camila while he read from the messy writing on the back.

“July 12th, 9pm -”

His words were dissolved by Camila’s sudden exclamation as she surged forward, ripping the photo from his grasp.

“Okay, fine! _Maybe_ I’m sort of, kind of, doing something _a little_ that maybe some people could possibly think was maybe slightly a little bit stalkerish. Just a little.”

“Just a little,” he echoed, rolling his eyes before gesturing to the plethora of photos and notes scattered over the bed. She didn’t exactly feel like she _owed_ him an explanation, but she did feel the need to defend herself before she was suddenly labeled as the daughter of a murderer _and_ as a stalker.

Maybe they’d all think she helped her dad murder Lucy, and that Lauren was next. She didn’t know Shawn well enough to trust him, but she wasn’t exactly seeing a better solution at the moment - aside from coming clean about it all.

“Remember Lucy?”

“The dead girl - yeah, of course.”

“My dad’s in prison for murdering her,” she admitted, waiting for the shock, the horror, the disgust and fear and -

“Uh, yeah, I was there at school today too, Mila. I heard everyone talking.”

Camila let out a breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding. She was independent, sure, and even though the rumors and gossip and teasing was painful, she could live with it. But she was still a sixteen year old girl, one who wanted to spend Friday nights with someone other than her little sister, one who wanted somebody to vent to other than her mother, one who wanted at least _one_ friend in the whole damn town.

Maybe that one friend couldn’t be Shawn, maybe he’d turn out to be just another jackass who wanted something from her, maybe he wouldn’t understand her or they just wouldn’t click, maybe they’d have nothing in common. But those were all maybies for another day; that day, he was all she had. It was a relief knowing she wouldn’t have to do the whole _my dad is in prison for murdering a teenager, wanna come over for dinner?_ thing.

“You...you know?”

“After school today, I’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to,” he chuckled, but Camila obviously wasn’t amused.

“Look,” he sighed, “I don’t know your dad, or _you_ really, for that matter. But you helped me this morning when you didn’t have to, and you treated me like your friend today instead of just _the new kid._ That’s all that matters in my book. You’re weird, C girl, like, _really_ weird, but you aren’t your dad. Murderer or not, nobody deserves to be judged based on what someone else did. Nobody defines you but _you._ ”

“Shawn -” Camila tried, not sure of what to say but eager to say _something_ after the boy had just unknowingly said everything she needed to hear. He cut her off before she could speak though - which was probably for the best, considering the only words in her head were _uh_ and _oh._

“So for the record, I’m only judging you for being a stalker; not a murderer. If Lauren turns up dead, though, I might have to rethink this whole thing.”

_There he is._

“I’m not _stalking her_ because I’m a murderer; I’m _investigating her_ because I want to prove she is.”

“What are you saying, exactly?” Shawn prompted, looking back to the contents of the folder with confusion.

“I think she killed Lucy. I think my dad is in prison for a crime he didn’t commit and I think I’m going to find who did.”

Something lit up behind Shawn’s brown eyes - something Camila didn’t know him well enough to recognize.

“So what you’re saying is,” he began, stepping forward with the folder raised to her eye level, “you’re like... a _spy_.”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all,” Camila huffed. _Spy_ was an exaggeration she certainly didn’t fit the mold for; after all, it’d been almost three months since her father was dragged off and she still didn’t have enough to prove he was innocent. Her _spying_ was definitely in need of some improvement.

“This is so cool,” he grinned, “you’re like _James Bond._ ”

 _More like Carmen Cortez,_ she thought to herself, _a literal fucking child in way over her head._

"Shawn, no, it’s not like that.”

His face paled suddenly.

“Oh my god,” he whispered, so low Camila wasn’t sure if he was talking to her, or to himself, “does that mean I’m a Bond Girl?”

“You can be Honey Ryder, if that makes you feel any better. But for the record, I’m not sleeping with you.”

“As long as I’m not Pussy Galore, I’ll take it.”

“What’s wrong with Pussy?” Camila frowned, which only deepened when Shaw’s eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead.

 _Am I missing something?_ she asked herself, searching his face for answers but only finding the quivering muscles of a restrained grin.

“Yeah, I’m not even going to answer that,” he laughed, shaking his head in pity. Camila racked her brain trying to understand what was so funny, but eventually she just chalked it up to Shawn’s weird city sense of humor and directed the conversation back to the disaster in her bedroom.

“Well then, Ms. Ryder,  you ready to help me solve a murder?”

“Life in this shitty town just got so much more interesting.”

***

“Oh my god,” Shawn exclaimed, when Camila finally finished sifting through the evidence with him, “she totally did it.”

“I know!” Camila agreed.

“They were friends for,” he paused, reaching for one of Camila’s notes, but she finished for him.

“Four years. And they weren’t just _friends,_ Shawn. They were best friends. Inseparable.”

“Right,” he nodded, “until a few months before she died.”

“Exactly. One day they were attached at the hip, and the next, Lauren wouldn’t even look at her anymore.”

“Friends fight, but I don’t know, it’s weird that they never made up. Lucy just _died.”_

“She didn’t ‘just die,’” Camila sighed, “she was _murdered.”_

“Yeah, and you said Lucy was always trying to see her?”

“Yeah, I was an office aid last year and I heard her constantly trying to find a way to bribe Mr. Cowell into calling Lauren out of class so they could talk. She seemed desperate. Whatever happened between them, Lucy was a mess about it.”

“I wonder if she was afraid, if she thought Lauren would hurt her and that was why she was so desperate to smooth things out.”

“I don’t know,” Camila admitted, wondering if maybe Lucy would still be alive and her dad would still be at home if they had just _talked_ it out sooner. It was odd to think about - that maybe a conversation could’ve been the difference between life and death.

“You said Lauren threatened her once, though, right? It’s right here, somewhere,” Shawn took a breath, shuffling a few of the papers before grabbing a piece of paper covered in Camila’s chicken scratch.

“2 weeks before she died. She interrupted the Vamps show - which, by the way, who ever told them that was a good band name? - but anyway, she was arguing with Lauren about…” He trailed off skimming the paper until his eyes landed on what he was looking for.

“So you didn’t hear them arguing yourself, but you talked to Vero?”

“Yeah, I was on the other side of the room, but she was sitting right next to Lauren. She said she was high as shit though so the details are foggy…”

“You wrote here that Vero remembered Lucy saying something about telling Lauren’s dad, but...it doesn’t say anywhere about what.”

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it, Shawny?”

“Yeah, I guess so. And Vero also remembered Lauren dragging Lucy outside, threatening -”

“ _Open your mouth again and I’ll make sure it’s the last time you do_ ,” Camila quoted, almost in a trance. She’d read those words hundreds of times, ever since Vero finally told her what happened that night.

“That’s a death threat, Mila. Why didn’t you go to the cops with that?”

“Okay, first of all Shawn, we don’t have _cops._ We have a sheriff’s department that pretty much cares more about Monday Night Football and free drinks at the bar than any actual enforcement of the law. And second, the only person who heard this whole thing happen was a cross faded teenager with familial ties to a drug lord. Not the most reliable witness account.”

“Okay, you have a point,” he admitted with an exasperated sigh.

“I know I do.”

“But look,” he pressed on, pointing to a picture of the LYLAS chemical plant where Lucy’s body was found, “her dad _works_ there. That’s gotta count for something.”

“Opportunity, definitely,” Camila agreed, “and he’s not just some random employee either. He’s one of the head engineers. He’s got access to everything, everywhere. She could’ve easily gotten into that room.”

“But…” Shawn trailed off, brushing papers aside until he found a copy of the evidence from the trial, “the keycard that opened the door that night was registered to your dad, not hers.”

His tone wasn’t accusatory; he was simply confirming the information.

“There’s an explanation for that...I just haven’t figured it out yet. She did it, though. I _know_ she did. I can feel it, like, deeper than just my gut. I feel it in my bones, in my blood. _She did it_.”

“Well, we’ve got her motive - sort of, anway. Something big must have happened, to cause such a rift in a four year friendship. We just don’t know what that is. Maybe Lucy wasn’t a fan of the boyfriend?”

“I don’t think that’s it. Lauren and Brad were together for almost six months when her friendship with Lucy fell apart. It had to be something new, something changed.”

“Maybe she slept with him,” Shawn suggested, and Camila mentally slapped herself across the face for not considering that sooner.

“Oh my god, “she exclaimed, “that would make perfect sense. If he slept with Lucy, that would explain why she was so desperate to talk to Lauren: to apologize, to save her friendship. It would explain why Lauren stopped bringing Brad around her friends after that - because it was only after the fight with Lucy that she started spending lunch with _his_ friends and hanging out with _his_ friends instead of bringing him around her own. It would explain why she’s so up his ass now; she doesn’t trust him!”

“It would also explain their argument during the show. Maybe Lucy was threatening to tell everyone that Brad cheated and Lauren was trying to protect her reputation. Or maybe it really was a mistake, and Lauren just didn’t want to hear her apologies anymore. Or maybe Lucy was just a bitch, who was threatening to tell Lauren’s dad because she knew he’d make them break up and she wanted Brad for herself. There’s a million reasons why Lauren could’ve wanted Lucy to keep her mouth shut about sleeping with Brad.”

“So the motive here is clear,” Shawn began, and Camila continued for him.

“And she obviously had the opportunity. Lucy had been so desperate to talk to her, she probably would’ve came anywhere Lauren asked no matter the time and without question. It also happened at her _dad’s workplace,_ so she definitely knew her way around and could’ve easily gotten access to the restricted areas.”

“But we don’t really have means, either. The autopsy report - which I’m definitely going to need an explanation on how you even _have_ \- says the cause of death was from chemicals.”

“Right, she could’ve found a way to get access to those too, though. I mean, her dad is the top of the food chain there. I’m sure quite a few people befriended the daughter of their boss in hopes to get on his good side.”

“Getting access isn’t the issue,” Shawn shook his head, “this says the chemicals given to her were extremely concentrated and specific. I know I haven’t been here long, but Lauren doesn’t exactly seem like a master chemist to me.”

“My dad was a fucking maintenance worker, and they never cared about his knowledge of chemistry.”

“No offense, Mila, but your dad was an easy target. If you want to put the sixteen year old daughter of one of the richest families in this town behind bars instead of…” he trailed off awkwardly, unsure of how to finish. Camila knew what he meant, though.

“Instead of the middle aged janitor from Mexico? I know. I know, I need more.”

“It’s just, people _expected_ him to be a criminal; people need to be _forced_ to see Lauren as one. You need evidence no one can argue with. Nobody is going to look at that girl and see a murderer.”

“Nobody should’ve looked at my dad and saw one, either.”

“It’s fucked up, Mila, it is. But when a kid dies, people need to blame someone. And your dad was just... _there.”_

“My dad didn’t come to this country just to be turned into a criminal.”

“We’re going to fix this. We just...we need more. We need concrete evidence. This is all circumstantial.”

“I know. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to get anything tangible. I need proof Brad cheated on her, or whatever it is that caused such a blow out between them. I need proof of how Lauren could’ve used my dad’s keycard, and of how she knew so much about chemical properties. I need the knife she used to cut Lucy’s wrists. I need so much more than _this,”_ she finished, gesturing wildly to the mess of papers surrounding them.

“Or you need a confession.”

“Why would she confess to _me_ , of all people?”

“It’s time to put this secret agent thing to the test, C girl. Get close to her. Stop being the creepy stalker behind a photo lense. She’s probably desperate to confess to someone, anyway. I mean, look at this,” Shawn paused, tapping his fingernails across a blown up photo of the crime scene, right where the words were so clearly carved into Lucy’s wrists.

“ _Guilty._ Maybe she meant Lucy was guilty for cheating, but look at the way her body is wrapped up so neatly. Look how clean it all is. I think she was saying _she’s_ guilty for doing it.”

“I don’t know about this…”

“Dead girls tell no tales, Mila. But living ones do. So stop asking the dead girl what happened to her and start playing this smart. You want Lauren’s deepest, darkest secret? You’re not going to find it in pictures, in notes, in a story you heard from the weed queen. People keep their secrets locked inside their hearts. You want that secret, you better find a way in there too.”

“How in the hell am I supposed to get inside the heart of someone who doesn’t have one?”

“Lucy did it. For four years, according to you.”

“I guess I don’t really have any better ideas,” she finally relented, and Shawn just grinned like this was the unfolding plot of an action movie he was directing instead of the harsh reality Camila felt settling into her skin.

“There’s only one thing about all of this I don’t understand,” Shawn told her, dropping the empty folder in front of Camila’s lap.

“ _Why_ Project Verde? What does _green_ have to do with anything?”

“I thought you didn’t know any Spanish?” Camila crinkled her eyebrows, thinking back to the conjugation disaster of fourth period.

“ _Everyone_ knows that word, though,” he deadpanned. Camila just shrugged. She thought everyone could conjugate ser and estar, too, but Shawn _definitely_ proved her wrong on that front.

“If you say so.”

“So why project green?” He asked again, drumming his fingers over the green marker smeared across the folder. She had to admit, it was kind of frustrating that he didn’t put it together himself. Did he even _look_ at her, at school?

Camila thought her reasoning was painfully obvious.

“Have you _seen_ her eyes?”


End file.
